Robert: F2P has a huge influence. But we have been based on subscriptions for years, with some games being around for 10+ years. Subscripitions hit a hardcore audience that is really embedded in those games. But as you expand your audience, they aren’t as hardcore anymore and F2P becomes more enticing as subs only wouldn’t appeal.

Nicolay: Both models work. Hardcore gamers are comfortable with sub model and most of the games with microtransactions have been casual games. But it is possible to have more than one biz model in a game.

Min: There is room in the market for both biz models. F2P in North America will make a large push as teenagers can’t commit to $15/month, so F2P will work well with them. Nexon saw lots of success when the market went beyond core to mass market.

Hilmar: Consumers are changing the business model of games - consumers making decisions. You can play Eve online through our trial program as a F2P program - users are able to “game” our trial system to play it as a F2P game. It’s a challenge for companies to adopt the needs of the market rather than keeping their head in sand. People will play the game how they want.

Min: We’re seeing in S Korea a lot of players have a subscription-based game that is their favourite, but have a secondary game that they play f2p with microtransactions.

I can't imagine the FTP model will ever overtake subscription models in the West, but there's no doubt that there are a lot of people playing FTPs — and spending way, way more than they would on a subscription — with an ever-increasing audience. I'm curious to see if we'll get any of the crazier FTP MMOs coming out of Asia in the coming years.

Evolving Business Models in MMOs - Panel [Free To Play]

I might go so far as to say my preferred play style is inherently incompatible with the mere idea of MMOs, never mind personality quirks that make spending time online with strangers sound more like torture than fun. I'm a solitary gamer, so when I fire up a console or turn on a handheld, I’m looking for a solitary escape. I want to get sucked in, be it flinging chickens in Harvest Moon or sinking into an RPG for hours on end. Generally, I don’t want to share my gaming experience — sure, I do multiplayer games at parties, I’ve sat around with friends and watched them play or had them watch me as we discuss games. But in general? Please, please, please leave me alone.

But when an email from a Perfect World PR person popped up in my Kotaku inbox, asking if I’d like to take the new ‘international’ version of Wanmei shijie for a spin, I — against my better judgment — said ‘Oh, what the hell,’ booted my poor little Mac up into Windows, and downloaded my first MMO client. Because as solitary a gamer as I am, I do write a lot about MMOs, have friends who play MMOs and delight in telling me their latest exploits, am interested in the mechanics and social elements of MMOs. I’m generally fascinated by the dynamics of online communities, so wouldn’t it be nice to be an observer from the inside for once? I marveled at the character creation options, selected the human melee ‘blademaster’ class (with a minimum of eye rolling), and ran with it.

An MMO with Training Wheels: the Test Servers

After killing a handful of squealing, carnivorous plants, I was on my way to the first big city. I stepped through the gates, and was greeted with … absolutely empty streets.

Sign number one I was probably not cut out for this MMO thing: instead of being disappointed, my heart leapt with joy. The first time I ran into someone in the game — actually, a giant panda-headed person riding a snake sort of came out of nowhere while I was puzzling over a ‘jumping quest’ (dear Perfect World, if I wanted to have my accuracy skills tested re: jumping on stuff, I would’ve picked up a platformer, not an RPG) — I was so shocked I nearly dropped my laptop, and it’s quite possible that I squealed in terror. As a friend drily commented, ‘You’re probably the only person who gets freaked out by running into people in massively multiplayer games.’

But other than a few people I ran into here and there, Perfect World was — as far as I was concerned — just about perfect, because it was wonderfully, blissfully empty. I was cognizant of the fact that I was theoretically missing out on the primary, very social draw of MMOs, but I was having fun despite myself. So much fun, actually, I managed to ignore the fact that my laptop gets very, very hot when running Windows and had put a nice, oval-shaped burn on my left thigh (which has yet to go away completely, a month and a half after the fact). OK, so maybe playing with my laptop in my lap wasn’t the best idea. My revised setup was indication number two that I maybe wasn’t taking this seriously enough: who needs a dedicated machine when you’ve got a laptop stand, some USB peripherals, and a dog who likes to lay right on the mouse? Not me, that’s for damn sure.

‘Empty,’ though, does come with some problems. While it’s pretty easy to march up the first forty levels or so by yourself, there are the occasional dungeons that won’t let you in unless you’re in a party. Lucky for me, the nice PR guy swooped in and offered his assistance, in the form of a maxed out cleric (Me: ‘How in the hell did you just one-shot that thing when I’m doing no damage?’ Him: ‘Well, I am at 105.’ Me: ‘Yeah, having 80 levels on me would probably do that.’). I spent most of that dungeon flat on my back, and very dead, but it was at least a vantage point to see what all the fuss was about. I found myself biting my nails after the servers went down while we were still in the instance, afraid that a rollback would kill all my hard work spent dead and/or doing roughly zero damage, even with my fanciest moves. I breathed a sigh of relief when I logged back in and discovered that all was well and nothing had rolled back.

For an MMO newbie, and someone who wasn’t too sure about that whole ‘other people playing’ thing, the test servers were a really nice chance for me to get comfortable with the game and things like ‘using a keyboard’ for gaming. We were given a ridiculous amount of cash shop currency, so I bought myself a nice, giant boa, which facilitated a lot of wandering — there was a certain je ne sais quoi about meandering around a massive, empty MMO. I wandered here, I wandered there, and there was no one to revive me if I died, and no one to foul up a nice virtual sunset.

‘Maybe if I just stand still, they’ll leave me alone!’: Closed Beta

My laptop conveniently died right before the closed beta started; after it had been returned from wherever the Mac ‘Geniuses’ sent it, I signed up again, managed to create a reasonable facsimile of my first character, and girded my loins to brave people.

While getting used to the fact the game was no longer empty, I also had to get used to the fact that other people have different standards for online communiqués. My basic standard is simply that I want to know what you want; a year and a half of working for Kotaku and having a published IM account has made me rather adverse to people trying to get my attention thusly:

Hey. Hey. Hey. Hey. HEY. ??? Hey. Hey Maggie. Are you there? MAGGIE. Hey MAGGIE. Hey. Hey. Hey. HEY. MAGGIE.

Really, I just want some basic courtesy instead of someone spamming me while I’m trying to get other work done, otherwise I’m going to click ‘close window.’ It’s not hard. Still, I wasn’t terribly surprised (nor enthused) when my first MMO interaction with random people happened in much the same manner - I was swarmed by a group of people, all babbling at me. If there had been a character action for ‘crawl under nearest object,’ I would’ve made use of it. Instead, I took the dog out for a walk, hoping by the time I got back they’d be gone and would stop sending me ‘So-and-so would like to pick you up’ requests.

Despite anxiety over actually interacting with other players, I did watch the goings on with some interest. From the people who wanted to tag along with higher level groups because ‘I’m too lazy to level via quests *lulz*’ to the clerics who hovered around and buffed everyone who came through to the occasional temper tantrum over kill stealing, it was my first real taste of playing around — if not with — a pretty wide spectrum of people.

‘Just call me Lady Xu, bourgeois impediment to class struggle’: Open Beta and Beyond

Closed beta didn’t last very long, and with open beta, there was no threat of a character wipe – so I set out to create a second facsimile of the character I'd started with and the character I’d be sticking with for a while. All was well up to the point where I needed a name — because my name was unavailable. This was irksome — because it’s my Chinese name, so I’m rather attached to it in the real world, too, and besides, I’m terrible at coming up with names. I drummed my fingers on my keyboard and contemplated. Something akin to ‘CutiePie004’ isn’t really my style. ‘KotakuMaggie’ was a little too literal, and even though I picked a PvE server to play on, I worried about outing myself and being too obvious. Casting my eye over my bookshelf, I hit on a well-loved volume, and with an apology to my favorite Chinese poet, I jacked her name. In an ultra-rebellious act of defiance against the Wade-Giles hegemony imposed by whoever translated the game, I used pinyin, lodging my own little protest against ‘Shih’ and ‘Hsi’ and ‘Tao.’ Just call me Maggie, Pinyin Guerilla — saving the world, one 'hsu' at a time.

Before open beta opened, I meandered over to the Perfect World boards to see what people were talking about. Community doesn’t end when you log out, at least that's the theory. A little naively, perhaps, I was expecting some warm fuzzies and a bit of excitement about having an English version of the game that wasn’t piggybacking on Malaysian servers, but was quickly disabused of that notion. I was fascinated to discover the hysteria over PWI’s decision to offer a PvP and a PvE server. Not being sold on this whole ‘MMO’ thing in the first place, the PvE server seemed like the best choice for me — other people clearly enjoy the whole PvP experience, and they had a server for that, too. Surely that couldn’t be cause for consternation, could it? Of course it could, this is the internet we’re talking about. I’d always associated MMOs with slightly more sandbox-type play than my preferred console titles, where you’re locked into a specific play style because the designers said so, so why would people stress about someone choosing not to play the game in the same way? Open beta wasn’t even open, and battle lines were already being drawn.

The hysterics reached a higher pitch over cash shop pricing. I think the free to play model is an interesting one – Perfect World actually started life as a subscription game and swapped to FTP – for a number of reasons. I certainly have the disposable income to spend on a monthly subscription — or several — if I so choose, but I generally dislike spending money on things I’m not using. Since my gaming goes in cycles as time allows, there are many months were I just don’t have to time to make ample use of a subscription, which (in addition to aforementioned general unease in regards to multiplayer games) has stopped me from taking friends up on offers to join whatever subscription game they’re playing.

With a lot of free to play models, that concern is tossed out the window. Not playing a lot? Don’t spend any money. Hell, don't spend any money if you don't feel like it, period. There are games that lock off certain features, dungeons, and the like if you’re not paying what amounts to a subscription fee, but PW just charges you for premium, and sometimes frivolous, items. I’ve come to the conclusion the game is certainly easier in a number of respects if you’re willing to pay real cash for certain items, and probably makes grinding your way to the end a lot easier. But in my low level existence, I’ve somehow managed to struggle on without paying real money for virtual fashion, which costs a lot more than my boring regen charms I replace every couple of weeks. People also resell cash shop items in game for regular (virtual) game currency, so pinch your virtual pennies long enough and you, too, can buy cash shop items — without spending any real money.

I can see how it would be easy to blow past what you'd spend on a monthly subscription, but a lot of people seem to be quite cognizant of how much they're actually spending in FTP games, and PW is no exception; angry foot stomping about how 'free to play' is 'free to pay' is silly at best. Apparently, sign number three that I maybe don't take this stuff as seriously as I should is that I'm not burning through consumable cash shop items like there's no tomorrow, thus have no reason to foam at the mouth about pricing, since a couple of bucks a month is doable. It gets too rich for my blood, consumables get too necessary? Simple solution — I'll stop playing.

Many players coming from the Malaysian version of the game were shocked that higher prices were being charged for the International version, where the hypothetical gaming population probably has slightly more disposable income (sadly, guys, my lunch also costs me more in San Diego than it does in China). Mass hysteria ensued, and topics sprung up that would make a Marxist proud. I said ‘OK’ to the somewhat fixed pricing and shelled out a few dollars for a couple of useful items that I knew I wanted from my previous forays into the game, and based on a lot of posts on the forums, I think this qualifies me for a couple of labels: 'bourgeois' and 'capitalist roader' being tops. I think it would probably be a smart decision on the part of the Perfect World overlords to knock down pricing for a variety of reasons, but the palpable despair of people is certainly something to behold – and a bit odd when one is talking about a game where you really don’t need to spend anything to just play the game.

Despite topics — mostly related to the cash shop — that made it sound like the entire gaming population was going to up and leave, bound for Malaysian servers, the open beta is crowded. Well, it seems crowded to me, the non-MMO player, so take that for what it’s worth. The first time I came face to face with server lag, I also came face to face with a veritable army of little cats (player shops), which made packed Taiwanese night markets look empty — and made me question the wisdom of setting up shop in such tight quarters that you can’t even see what they’re selling. I’m still learning how to navigate my way around hordes of people in the field, have yowled in frustration a few times when someone launches an attack on a monster right before I have a chance to land the opening blow, and am getting used to role players doing their thing and sending lines of text swooshing past my ‘common chat’ window.

I still haven’t gotten over some of my neuroses — my pathological shyness has hindered me in going out and, say, finding groups to run dungeons with on the fly — but I have run into couple of fun people to play with, lured some MMO-playing friends in to at least dabble in PW as an addendum to their subscription-based MMOs (the general response has been ‘It’s like WoW with the serial filed off and some Asian flair -– and hey, it’s free!’), gotten a lot more in the swing of things than I ever thought I would. I’m still baffled by some of the more social options — like selecting and joining a guild — but I figure like everything else I’ve gotten used to the past month and change, this too will come with time.

And I’ve gotta say … I kinda like it. So much so, in fact, I'll probably take up those friends on their offers to join in subscription-based fun, having eased into the whole idea without actually being tied to a subscription. Until then, I'll just be hanging with the Rhinodrakes.

With so many entertainment and consumer brands moving into virtual worlds, it’s easy to overlook the opposite trend starting to emerge.

A handful of successful online brands are starting to move onto store shelves through licensing and partnership agreements.

Neopets is the poster child in this space and Habbo, on the back of some early dabbling in the space, hinted at the show of a major offline brand tie-up to be announced soon

The real-to-virtual transition can be tough (be it a virtual world or movie tie-in), but it seems a lot easier to go the other way — and considering a lot of virtual world denizens are so damn cute already, how hard can a toy line be? Perhaps more traditional companies looking to 'break out from the glass wall' of retail can take a few marketing cues from their younger, simpler virtual worlds cousins.

The War on Geekiness and 4 Other Trends from Virtual Worlds Expo 2008 [Free To Play]

So, as LALAa the 17-year-old human female entered the world of Mabinogi, I braced myself for whatever the game had in store for me.

Three hours later, I logged off feeling slightly like Gilligan and the Skipper - completely and irrevocably lost. I'd picked up the game's point-and-click interface fairly quickly (so I thought), but my confusion ran deeper than that. It wasn't even what I was being asked to do - the standard "go kill 10 (enemies)" or "bring me five (items)" are old hat to any MMOG player - as much as how I was being asked to do it.

While running aimlessly around the starting area, an owl suddenly flew by and dropped off a quest to bring five berries to a local NPC. I was baffled; what had I done to earn this quest? As far as I could tell, nothing, but a quest is a quest. The best way to gather berries in the world of Mabinogi, it turns out, is to attack bushes and trees over and over until they drop them - of course, they can also drop branches instead, I mercilessly clicked the local foliage in search of berries, unsure if I was doing this properly. What made me get a branch instead of a berry - was it random? Should I be focusing on bushes instead of trees? Upon gathering the berries and locating the NPC, I was informed that I'd taken too long to complete the quest, and it had expired. Naturally, I hadn't realized that the task was time-sensitive.

It felt like I was still in the tutorial phase, only they weren't explaining anything to me

After speaking to some avid Mabinogi players, Funk comes to the conclusion that he had approached the game in the wrong manner: it wasn't so much a Mabinogi problem as a problem of expectations. It's a funny look at getting outside your gaming comfort zone.

My Korean Fantasy Life [The Escapist]

Rather than just a normal and a collectors edition, shouldn't we go further? The idea of being able to pay for gameplay advantage in an online game is hideous, but some Asian MMOs have done very well by charging players for cosmetic improvements. The idea of 'free game, charge people for hats' is much talked about in industry circles. There’s no reason why this can't be extended in a different way.

Take a game like Call of Duty 4. I loved it, and enjoyed it online and off. I'd have happily paid £50 rather than £30 for it. But some people ONLY wanted it for online play. Some of them might have used voice chat (I don't bother) and maybe some of them could only run it on low-resolution or detail. Why do we all pay the same price? Conversely I hate paying for the campaigns in Company of Heroes. I never play them, just skirmish and online.

I've found a lot of people to be suspicious of the microtransaction model in games, mostly for fear of poorer service and/or nickel and diming to death. I think the ability to pay for just what you want is nice — there are plenty of games floating around on my shelves with functionality I never use (or have used maybe once). It's an interesting article on potentials for more modular games in the future.

The Economy of Happiness [bit-tech.net via Rock, Paper, Shotgun]

365 days of free games [GamesRadar via IndieGames]

I've been galloping around the test servers for the past week or so, and I've been having a reasonably good time (especially considering I usually abhor actually playing MMORPGs). It's pretty, it's free, and if you haven't already, may be worth checking out.

Out of some 2000 online gamers surveyed, Parks said, 14 percent would be interested in playing more MMORPGs if they were free. According to Worlds in Motion, Parks Associates' Michael Cai said that the excess of 10 million players WoW's scored is a major exception that most publishers shouldn't expect to emulate using a subscription business model.

"Social, dormant, and leisure gamers all show significant interest in a free-to-play, microtransaction-based model," said the study.

Most "hardcore" MMO players are actually opposed to the microtransaction-driven model because of concerns about game balance, and some developers have said it can be an extra challenge to balance a complex MMORPG when some users will pay for items and others won't. But games aimed at more casual players may not be possessed of the same level of complexity, or may feature different types of game mechanics, thus lessening the concern.

Parks: More Free Games Needed To Grow MMORPG Market [Worlds in Motion]

Korean games (non-Japanese games in general, actually) tend to get a lot of flack — 'They're all the same!' 'They're so badly made!' 'Just look at them!' — but Brandon Sheffield cautions that we ought to be keeping a closer on eye on the Korean market. With different development strategies, different working environments, and different players, there is stuff to be learned from Korean companies taking steps to expand westward:

The fact is, Western developers have ignored, discounted, or simply not known about the South Korean market for far too long, and now we're face to face with reality. Aside from World of Warcraft, they've taken a genre we invented, and perfected it to the point where an online dance game like T3 Entertainment's Audition has tens of millions of subscribers worldwide.

That's rather a lot of people, and we're ignoring it. When I first noticed that company in 2002, they were making a game called Raphael that was so rudimentary as to almost be freeware.

Korea is starting to get more attention, but perhaps the most impressive thing is how well some Korean companies have done with their entrance into other markets — it'll be interesting to see how the gaming landscape changes over the next couple of years.

Why You Should Care About Korea [GameSetWatch]

You can head over to the official website to download the game for free and check out the tons of new content Nexon has added in honor of today's official launch, including new weapons, a new map, and the addition of a new game mode, Capture the Flag. Wait, they've only just added Capture the Flag? This should be entertaining.

UPDATE: Nexon contacted us to clarify that while items will be eventually be available for purchase for Nexon cash, upgraded weapons never will. Hit the jump for the full "Free to Play Pledge".

The Free to Play Pledge

Combat Arms is Nexon’s free-to-play person shooter. Some games and companies do Free-to-Play games differently, so we’ll explain exactly what our mind-set is for this game.

First, Combat Arms will never cost a penny to play. Period.

Second, we believe that in any first-person shooter, being able to use real money to buy an uber gun sucks. It makes the game dependant on money and not skill (thus defeating the purpose of Free-to-Play), and skill is what a first-person shooter is all about. No point in competing if some new guy has a mystical weapon with magic bullets that always seem to find your head.

So, no weapons will be bought with Nexon Cash. Ever.

If you’re looking for the Golden Gun that will help you pwn everything with one shot, look elsewhere, because it’s not here. Skills are not bought, they are earned.

You want that new, awesome weapon? Keep playing, and you’ll eventually get it. All players will be on an equal footing weapon-wise (grenades included). We make money by selling the cosmetic items—stuff like shades, different uniforms, helmets, etc. Nothing game balance related is sold in the Cash Shop, and it’s going to stay that way.

You won’t have to pay a subscription fee either. Every single one of Nexon’s games are Free-to-Play, and subscription free. You need a free Nexon Passport to play, and that’s it. If you have one already, just download the client and start shooting people in the face. In addition, don’t expect to be bombarded with endless ads—we don’t expect you to pay not to see them. We want gun clicks, not mouse clicks.

That’s our promise to the player base, and we’re going to keep it.

See you on the battlefield!

Thanks to Nexon for clearing that up!

Combat Arms [Official Website]

Worlds In Motion sat down to talk about IMVU with CEO and president Cary Rosenzweig; I think we're seeing the second coming of Second Life if the New York Times picks up on this. The interview itself is interesting, with a lot of attention paid to the creative/economic aspects of item transactions and so forth. On how it all works (and how it's working out in IMVU):

Somebody takes the credits they get from IMVU, and it goes to the item's creator. At the point where the item is sold, IMVU takes some of these credits back. We call it a sink to pull credits out of the economy to prevent inflation.Numerically, the vast majority of people who sell those items take the credit and go back into the catalog themselves to buy more stuff.

Within IMVU, there's status with being a creator. Some of them are very successful, as they've created amazing things, and lots of people buy their creations. We allow them to take those credits and trade them for cash from IMVU members, so they're in a competition with us.

We have an internal system that creates tremendous incentive, not only social, but creative and now financial, to attract the best creators. Many, many more said that it brings in a little money a month. We're proud of that.

Of course, the IMVU model is nothing new, but they're reportedly now raking in $1 million in revenue a month from their item catalog and associated purchases. We'll see if it manages to really take off (and stay that way).

IMVU's Cary Rosenzweig On "Building From The Avatar Up" [Worlds In Motion]

Nexon has revealed its very first North American-developed game (for the North American market), Sugar Rush Arena, which is now in closed beta. The game is a casual MMOG like other Nexon titles, but was developed in Vancouver as opposed to South Korea. Like Nexon's other titles, the game is free to play, but will offer virtual items and upgrades for purchase:

The title will allow players to fight against each other while trying to collect virtual coins ....

The development team working on Sugar Rush Arena is based in Vancouver, Canada and includes former Electronic Arts Worldwide Studios Group vice president and creative director Steve Rechtschaffner, as well as studio Klei Entertainment.

Headed by Jamie Cheng, Klei Entertainment previously developed and published Eets, a 2D puzzle game for PCs which was later revamped for Xbox 360's Xbox Live Arcade.

I presume if this is a successful move, we can expect to see more games targeted at the Western market being developed in the West; perhaps this is heralding a new trend?

Nexon Reveals First Western-Developed Title [Worlds In Motion]

Lightspeed, a venture capital firm, checked out the average revenue per user for some casual, free to play MMOGs (Club Penguin, Habbo Hotel, Runescape, and Second Life), establishing that other that SL - which pulls in a little over $9 a month in ARPU, thanks mostly to virtual land upkeep - these sorts of casual MMOGs pull in around $1.25 ARPU per month. Which, until one considers the user bases of games like Club Penguin, seems like a damn hard way to make some money:

Second Life: $9.30/mthly user/mth
Club Penguin: $1.62/mthly user/mth
Habbo: $1.30/mthly user/mth
Runescape: $0.84/mthly user/mth

Having spoken to many other MMOGs and virtual worlds on a private basis, this estimate seems to be a good gauge for what a well performing MMOG can aspire to from a free to play business model.

Left out are a number of other popular MMOGs like MapleStory; I'd be curious to see firmer statistics for a wider spread of games, though the comments section does include some speculative numbers for a few other games.

Successful MMOGs can see $1-2 in monthly ARPU [Lightspeed via Worlds In Motion]

Gamasutra has an interesting look up at the MMO free to play/micro-transaction vs. traditional subscription model up - talking with SOE's John Smedley, Three Rings' Daniel James and EA Mythic's Mark Jacobs. Unsurprisingly, there are differences in opinion on the utility of the micro-transaction model, with some participants in the discussion coming down on the side of the traditional subscription model:

"You know, everyone thinks it's just so cool to say that the subscription model is passé, that it's dead," notes Mark Jacobs, general manager and VP. "They love to talk about their new models and how they are going to revolutionize the MMOG world. But MMOG publishers are spending a lot more on their games than anyone thought they'd be spending five years ago."

"If your game doesn't have the production values of a leading-edge game, if they are two-dimensional and not three, if they have lower system specs, okay."

"But if you're investing as much time and money as we are on our MMOGs, if you need to pay for the servers and the customer support, if you want to make a real profit on your game, subscriptions are the only way to go."

Snap! Certainly, there are times when the subscription model works well, and times when it doesn't - Chinese players are increasingly moving away from WoW in favor of the domestically produced micro-transaction games. I can't foresee subscriptions ever going away, but companies are increasingly seeing the benefits of the micro-transactions.

MMOG Business Models: Cancel That Subscription! [Gamasutra]

I don't want to discount people, but I don't think they're doing all the right research, because I see all the misconceptions that people have about what our business is. If they're going to ask the right questions, we could probably tell them.

Or if they would just go in and experience our games. A lot of people talk about it like, "Hey, this can't work," or "It doesn't have the right balance," and then when I ask them questions like, "Have you played it or seen it?" they're like, "No, but it's like this!" and I'm like... (laughs)

Understanding Free-To-Play: Nexon's Min Kim Speaks Out [Gamasutra]

We have a lot of investors, because our company has all been privately funded with a range of investors, and of course our job is to make sure that they make a lot of money out of this process.

So, Stargate is actually, of course, our first product, and it's the one that's the most visible product, but if you look at what it takes to be a real player in our industry, part of what's made the better companies successful is the fact that they have scale.

Y Control: Joe Ybarra On Cheyenne Mountain's Massive Plans [Gamasutra]

An online game is just online content that you need to market in order to sell. The number of potential customers you can drive to the game's website either through word of mouth or through marketing spend is the key driver of sales, just like any other online business. The UV trend line is the best indicator of sales potential of a game.

Considering the amount of time I spend plowing through press releases for new MMOs and releases bragging about the earning potential of those currently on the market, it's interesting to get inside perspective on what all those pesky statistics actually mean from an operator's perspective.

How To Compare Online Gaming Businesses [Gamasutra]

Crook points out some growth challenges to free to play, though he notes these are definitely not deal-breakers for the business model. First, there are virtual property challenges. "At some point that's going to be decided by the courts. Hopefully we're out ahead of it," Crook said, pointing out Eric Bethke's forward-thinking endeavor to create an avatar bill of rights. Second, there are differing broadband speeds. And rising development costs will become an issue now with the advent of Electronic Arts' highly-polished Battlefield Heroes. Larger-scale F2P products are going to raise the quality bar, Crook says.

The talk clocks in at a little over half an hour, but if you're interested in the free to play model, it's definitely worth taking a look at.

The Slidecast from my F2P GDC Presentation [Free To Play]
Adrian Crook Talks Free To Play [Worlds In Motion]

CDC Games Launches Popular Manga-Style Online Video Game in North America

Lunia Is Now Commercially Available

ATLANTA & BEIJING—(BUSINESS WIRE)—CDC Games, a business unit of CDC Corporation and pioneer of the "free-to-play, pay for merchandise" model for online video games in China, announced today that its CDC Games International (CGI) business unit has launched Lunia, a massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) based on the popular manga-style comic art form, for commercial availability in North America.

Lunia, which was developed by Korea-based ALLM Co., Ltd., is based on the manga-style of Japanese comics which is widely popular throughout the world and is currently a more than $200 million industry in the U.S., according to Publishers Weekly. To play Lunia, visit the CDC Games portal at: www.12FootTall.com. Lunia and the 12 Foot Tall site are powered by IBM servers and hosted at a state-of-the-art Terremark data center that provides direct access to the core of the North American Internet.

Unlike many other MMORPGs currently on the market, Lunia is played much like an action arcade game, allowing players to move around using a keyboard's arrow keys, rather than a mouse. The game can also be played with a console "D pad" style controller which makes the game familiar and easy to use for the millions of Xbox users throughout North America.

In Lunia, various attacks can be launched by pressing combinations of keys rather than clicking on an enemy to attack. In addition, special skills and items can be conveniently controlled with hotkeys. Unlike many other games, Lunia does not restrict its skill hotkeys to the function keys on a keyboard. This allows users to more fully customize and adapt the game controls to their personal liking.

In further contrast to many popular MMORPGs, Lunia offers a detailed plotline and story to accompany game play. Battles between players and monsters take place in increasingly challenging stages which are much like chapters in the overall story. In each stage, the players accompany the four main characters: the Knight (Sieg), the Healer (Eir), the Wizard (Dainn), and the half-Elven Thief (Tia) on their adventures, often being required to complete certain tasks (for example, killing-off monsters in an area). These accomplishments advance the player through the story and are necessary to complete the stage. Animated cut scenes typically appear just before and after a stage, serving as transitions from chapter to chapter and additional sources of plot information.

Lunia has recently been test marketed in the U.S. by ALLM with favorable results, having received excellent user ratings from various game and fan sites. "We are excited to strengthen our partnership with CGI through the licensing of Lunia for the U.S. market," said Jong Myoung Lee, president of ALLM. "We expect Lunia to be well received in the North American market and we look forward to expanding our relationship with CGI in the future."

"We are very excited to launch our first online video game in North America," said Jeffrey Longoria, president of CGI. "With the launch of Lunia, we now have games operating in three major markets - China, Japan and North America. We intend to continue working aggressively to expand our commercial portfolio this year, as we plan to launch additional exciting new games in the coming months.

"Lunia breaks new ground in many new areas of the MMORPG genre," said Ron Williams, general manager of CDC Games USA, a unit of CGI. "Lunia is less complicated to operate than the typical MMORPG because Lunia is designed to be played like console games that are widely familiar to gamers. With the popular manga-style of animation and the strong crossover potential with console players, we expect this game to be well received in North American."

Lunia is the latest in several new games backed internationally by CGI. CGI already has established sub-license agreements to publish games through leading online games providers in Southeast Asia and Taiwan.

IBM international foundation president Stanley S. Litow said, "Innovation is the key to competitiveness in today's globally integrated economy, but just when we need it to skyrocket, interest in math and science has been declining in the United States. American competitiveness demands more interest in math and science by students. Virtual worlds and 3D are an unexplored resource in education. We asked our best researchers to incorporate the use of this technology into traditional educational curriculum."

We'll see how popular this experiment winds up being, but I'm sure we'll see more of the same in the future. The game is launching today, and you can find details at the game website.

IBM Announces Environmental Learning MMO For Kids [Worlds In Motion]

From Maple Story to Silkroad Online, there is no shortage of MMOs in the free to play space. In the same vein, there is an abundance of virtual worlds such as Second Life or Kaneva. It seems as though the vast majority of new free to play game since 2005 have been virtual worlds or MMOs.

Perhaps it's the very reason that these games have proliferated in the free to play market; MMOs and virtual worlds are inherently more inclusive than an FPS. Still, it would be a shame to see the free to play space flounder due to constant reiteration of the same genres and themes, turning away players seeking a different experience.

Considering the quiet inroads a number of free to play options have made in the American market, I would be surprised if the market didn't continue to grow - and I'm not convinced flying under the radar is such a bad thing.

Top 10 Free To Play Growth Killers [Free To Play]

That's right. EA is taking a stab at the free to play pricing structure, delivering the game to anyone with the bandwidth to pull it down this summer at no charge whatsoever. Revenue comes in the way of in-game advertising as well as microtransactions, though the exact nature of said microtransactions hasn't quite been fleshed out yet. Hopefully you won't have to buy bullets.

"Online gaming garners a massive audience," said Gerhard Florin, EVP Publishing Americas-Europe at EA. "People want to play games in new ways, with easier access that is quick to the fun. With Battlefield Heroes, EA brings its first major franchise to North America and Europe with a new distribution model and pricing structure adapted to the evolving way that people play."

Look for more details on the game in the March issue of Games for Windows magazine, which features a world exclusive cover story on the game.

BATTLEFIELD HEROES LEADS THE WAY FOR EA'S NEW 'PLAY 4 FREE' BUSINESS MODEL
Unique Cartoon Shooter Introduces a New Way to Play Battlefield

Chertsey, UK January 21, 2008 - At the Digital, Life, Design Conference (DLD) in Munich, Electronic Arts Inc., (NASDAQ: ERTS) today unveiled Battlefield Heroes™, an all-new Play 4 Free cartoon-style shooter that will bring classic Battlefield gameplay to an all new mass audience. Available for download at www.battlefield-heroes.com this summer, Battlefield Heroes is EA's first title that is offered completely for free, and features a built-in matchmaking system to ensure that players of equal skill are paired together for fair play. Developed by DICE in Stockholm, Battlefield Heroes is leading EA's new web-focused free to download, free to play business model which generates revenue through advertising and micro-transactions. With zero barriers to entry, now anyone can be a hero on the battlefield!

"Online gaming garners a massive audience," said Gerhard Florin, EVP Publishing Americas-Europe at EA. "People want to play games in new ways, with easier access that is quick to the fun. With Battlefield Heroes, EA brings its first major franchise to North America and Europe with a new distribution model and pricing structure adapted to the evolving way that people play."

Battlefield Heroes is a brand new game from the team behind Battlefield 1942™ and Battlefield 2™. It's fun cartoon-style graphics and gameplay caters to players of all skill levels. It is easy to pick up and play but with robust character customization and a deep online meta-game, gamers can spend hours building up their characters and conquering the world.

"We put a different twist on this Battlefield game going with the cartoon-style graphics and gameplay," added Ben Cousins, Senior Producer at EA DICE. "There's something here for all types of players — be it our core Battlefield fans or casual gamers. With the new online model, we will continually add new content to keep the game fresh and keep players engaged, while integrating player feedback in real time. As a game developer, it is such a cool new way to make games."

Battlefield Heroes will be released for the PC as a free download in summer 2008. This product is not yet rated by PEGI or ESRB. For more information on EA DICE, please visit www.dice.se or www.ea.com.
###

... We all played games, to a point where I needed acupuncture for my wrist! And we played games, from MMORPGs, to first-person shooters, to racing games ....

But, in a sense, we were really looking for games that everybody can play, even the thirty-five year old women, without a lot of complications. But there are certain specific criteria we also look for in the game developers: 1. They believe in the North American, Western market. 2. They have the capacity to work with us, because — as you guys know — these games, once they're launched, that's the beginning of your work, not the end, unlike the console games.

It's an interesting look at one company who is trying to bring over some fresh blood while still appealing to a wide audience (and has the funding to back up their effort) - well worth a read through if you have the time.

Q&A - Outspark Gets $11 M Funding, Talks 'Virtual Playground' [Worlds In Motion]

All the quests that I completed were all of the kill 5 of this, kill 10 of that, collect 4 of these by killing 4 or more of those sorts, excluding quests sending me from one NPC to another. Stock MMO quests.

One other quest some might consider an exception, was the become-a-soldier-quest itself, after killing 7 of something, being required to swear that my little guy would fight to the death for the Imaginary Goddess.

But most people wouldn't consider that an exception, and would instead say, "What now? I didn't really read it." Stock MMO players.

One of my wishes for 2008? That gems like this and Shanda press releases continuing flowing freely from China.

How I Spent My Vacation: Elfing [via Worlds In Motion]

New Content For Pirates Of The Caribbean Online Coming In February

Just after the launch of Pirates of the Caribbean Online, Disney Online has already announced new content that will give players the opportunity to give their customized Pirate avatars a whole new look!

In Pirates of the Caribbean Online, players create and customize their own pirate choosing from over a million combinations - from gender, body type, face, and hair, to clothing and names. Adding to the already extensive character creation system, Disney Online will introduce new customization options in February. Just a few of these include:

- Clothing: New pants, hats, coats, and more
- New hairstyles
- Tattoos
- Jewelry: Including earrings, nose rings, necklaces and more

In addition to new character customization features, Disney Online has additional content planned for 2008 including expanding ship customization, extending quest story lines, and adding more enemies and challenges.

Pirates of the Caribbean Online, developed and published by Disney Online, is rated E10+ and features lower PC and Mac system requirements than most other games in this genre, allowing for easier access to a broader audience of players.

Players can download the game directly and access additional information at the game's Web site, www.PiratesOnline.com. A portion of the game is available for free and players can get unlimited access for a monthly subscription fee.

NCsoft Launches Chunk 2, Adding Advertising, New Content to Dungeon Runners Game

AUSTIN, Texas—(BUSINESS WIRE)—NCsoft® today announced the release of Chunk 2, the second content update for its successful free-to-download and play game, Dungeon Runners™. This update includes in-game advertising in non-member worlds, more bank space for members, item trading, increased access to prime loot, and overall Player versus Environment (PvE) and Player versus Player (PvP) balance refinements.

Dungeon Runners is a free to download and play online multiplayer role playing game in a satirical, fast-paced sword-and-shield setting, where defeating monsters and evil enemies results in piles of loot, treasure, and non-stop fun.

The hallmark of Chunk 2 is in-game advertising which will help fund future development of the massively multiplayer online game (MMOG) and keep it free for players. The in-game advertising will be visible to non-members in loading screens and in a banner that sits on top of the game window during play. Dungeon Runners members, who can subscribe to the game for only $4.99 per month, will not see any of the advertising.

Advertising in Dungeon Runners will open up new content and functionality for all players. Non-member players will gain access to new content previously unavailable to them, including dungeons and valuable items. Also, non-members will now have access to one page of bank slots, enabling them to store more items. Members will increase their bank storage space from one to three pages.

Also, by popular demand, a secure trade system has been added to Dungeon Runners. This new feature allows everyone to easily trade items (with the exception of gold) with other players through a simple interface.

"Chunk 2 unlocks an enormous amount of playable content for non-members that they didn't have access to before thanks to the addition of in-game advertising," said Stephen Nichols, NCsoft's producer and lead programmer for Dungeon Runners. "Our non-member players are very happy they can now use what was previously members-only loot, and our members are really excited about receiving additional bank slots to hold their items. These changes, plus our new secure trade system, make this update a win-win for everyone!"

Further enhancements include increased rare item drops and stackable potions for members and non-members alike, which lead to more success in this hack-and-slash game.

Dungeon Runners can be downloaded for free at http://www.dungeonrunners.com/join.html. Players can play for free or subscribe to the members version at any point for $4.99 a month. Members have access to such benefits as log-in queue priority, members-only servers, and the most powerful items, weapons and armor. Membership status also includes three bank pages for hundreds of loot items and the ability to stack potions in one inventory slot to save room for even more loot.

To find out more please visit the Dungeon Runners web site at: www.dungeonrunners.com.

The game is rated Teen by the Entertainment Software Rating Board.

ATLANTA & BEIJING—(BUSINESS WIRE)—CDC Games, a business unit of CDC Corporation and pioneer of the "free-to-play, pay for merchandise" model for online games in China, announced today that its CDC Games International (CGI) business unit plans to launch Lunia Online, a massively multiplayer online role playing game (MMORPG) based on the popular manga style comic art form, for commercial availability in the U.S. during the first quarter of 2008.

Lunia Online, which was developed by Korea-based ALLM Co., Ltd., is based on the manga style of Japanese comics which is widely popular throughout the world and is currently a more than $200 million industry in the U.S. according to Publishers Weekly.

Unlike many other massively multiplayer online roll-playing games (MMORPGs) currently on the market, Lunia Online is played much like an action arcade game, allowing players to move around using arrow keys rather than a mouse. The game can be played with a console "D pad" style controller which makes the game familiar and easy to use for the millions of Xbox users throughout the U.S.

In Lunia Online, various attacks can be launched by pressing combinations of keys rather than clicking on an enemy to attack. In addition, special skills and items can be conveniently controlled with hotkeys. Unlike many other games, Lunia does not restrict its skill hotkeys to the function keys on a keyboard. This allows users to more fully customize and adapt the game controls to their personal liking.

In further contrast to many popular MMORPGs, Lunia Online also offers a detailed plotline and story to accompany game play. Battles between players and monsters take place in increasingly challenging stages which are much like chapters in the overall story. In each stage, the players accompany the three main characters: the Knight (Sieg), the Healer (Eir) and the Wizard (Dainn) in their adventure, often being required to complete certain tasks such as killing-off monsters in an area. These accomplishments advance the player through the story and are necessary to complete the stage. Animated cut scenes typically appear just before and after a stage, serving as transitions from chapter to chapter and additional sources of plot information.

Lunia has recently been test marketed in the U.S. by ALLM with favorable results and has received excellent user ratings from various game and fan sites. "We are excited to strengthen our partnership with CGI through the licensing of Lunia Online for the U.S. market," said Jong Myoung Lee, president of ALLM. "We expect Lunia Online to be well received in the U.S. market and we look forward to expanding our relationship with CGI further in the future."

"We are looking forward to launching Lunia Online for the U.S. market," said Jeffrey Longoria, president of CGI. "With our planned addition of Lunia Online, we will soon have games operating in three major markets: China, Japan and the U.S. We intend to continue working aggressively to expand our commercial portfolio further this year and in 2008, as we plan to launch many exciting new games in the coming months."

"Lunia Online breaks new ground in many new areas of the MMORPG genre," said Ron Williams, general manager of CDC Games USA, a unit of CGI. Lunia Online is less complicated to operate than the typical MMORPG because Lunia Online is designed to be played like console games that are widely familiar to U.S. players. With the popular manga style animation and a strong crossover potential with console players, we expect this game to be well received in the U.S. market."

Lunia Online is the latest in several new games backed internationally by CGI. CGI already has established sub-license agreements to publish games through leading online games providers in Southeast Asia and Taiwan.

Further to NCSoft's recently announced plans to release free to play content on the Sony network, Dallas talked about his company's goal of becoming "device agnostic" in order to break down the segregation of gamers between platforms. NCsoft plans to build their own cross-platform community service, with friends lists, inter-game messaging, and other features similar to Xbox Live. NCsoft also intends to release desktop, facebook and mobile widgets to extend gamers' experience.

Snell has some other interesting thoughts - retail may become extinct in the next decade? - and it's an interesting short-ish interview well worth a read through.

Dallas Snell Talks Dungeon Runners, Free to Play and NCsoft 2.0 [Free to Play]

Meanwhile, Neowiz is planning to expand to Japan, China and eventually the West. "The benchmark of game development is Korea," Choi says. "We believe it will grow in other countries." But Neowiz hasn't built a franchise abroad; its Japanese portal, launched last year, loses money. Despite the "borderless" world of the Internet, different Asian nations like different games, and language is a barrier. Indeed, EA chose a Chinese company, the Nine, to market FIFA Online in China.

In July Sony announced a partnership with Korea's NCsoft to develop its online games into console games for PlayStation. But Choi is convinced that the future of videogames is online. "In five to ten years all games will become online games," Choi says. "It will happen very fast."

I guess it depends on how broad your definition of 'online' is. There's no doubt that plenty of Western companies are watching the various companies in Asia and going 'Hmmm.' The question is - will the free to play model fly on a big scale in the West?

Money From Nothing [Forbes via cNet]

I don't know what convention organizers thought they would accomplish by bringing these men together, but what they got was a few heated arguments and well-placed jabs. Koster in particular had some great lines. At one point he was discussing 'clumsy microtransactions' that left gamers with a bad taste in their mouth. "Hello Lumines. Hello Oblivion. Yeah I'm talking about you." Apparently not a big fan of horse armor.

Once the smoke had cleared and then panel closed, there was no clear winner in the debate of standard subscription versus free-to-play microtransaction supported games. They only point that seemed to be agreed on was that anything that got gamers online was good, and that PC gaming wouldn't die until parents can work from home and children can do their homework with a games console. Productive!

Shanda's market cap today is $2B. It's not far-fetched to assume their purchase price might be close to $3B. The only companies with that kind of cash on hand are EA and Microsoft .... Netease (NTES) has a market cap of $2.06B. The9's (NCTY) market cap is $1.14B. Nexon is privately held, but with $235M in revenue two years ago, they won't be cheap either. The point is, there aren't many deals left among the virtual goods establishment.

The billion dollar question is: Where will these numbers be next year? Or in 2-3 years?

My gut says that in two years, North American companies will be "priced out" of acquiring a leadership position in the global virtual goods market.

To avoid this fate, big American publishers need internally developed/wholly owned virtual goods projects or partnerships with newer, smaller virtual goods companies ....

Of course, there are plenty of games that are ridiculously popular in Asia that will never be able to make the leap to Western markets, and there are plenty of poorly-designed, cheaply produced games that aren't going to provide years of revenue for their creators, but there is something to be said for 'keeping up with the times.' More traditional channels are never going to go by the wayside, but those free-to-play models around the margins are providing a challenge to the more standard fare.

US Publishers Can't Buy Asia's Virtual Goods Lead

The new subsidiary will leverage the domain expertise of CDC Games to seek out licensing opportunities that will enable the company to enter targeted global markets including Japan, North America and southeast Asia. CGI intends to launch new online MMO games in Japan and North America in late Q4 this year through its own operations as well as through publisher partners. The company has completed initial plans for publishing games directly in North America and Japan, including plans to leverage the global network and support infrastructure already established by its sister company, CDC Software.

They also announced sub-licensing agreements with companies in Taiwan and Southeast Asia and ... a lot of other stuff. Agreements to right of them, agreements to left of them - looks like they're serious about invading foreign markets. The question is - will gamers outside of China bite?

CDC Games Launches CDC Games International to Publish Online Games on a Global Scale [Digital 50]